SPILL Festival of Performance
2 - 22 April 2007
52 live performances, 6 World Premieres, 5 companies visiting the UK for the first time, 3 SPILL commissions, a 2 day symposium, an exhibition, and 3 huge feasts...
Conceived and curated by Robert Pacitti, and produced by Pacitti Company, SPILL is a major international programme of events taking place in a range of venues and sites across London, including Barbican, the Soho Theatre, the Shunt Vaults, Toynbee Hall, and the South Bank.
The Live Art Development Agency is working with Pacitti Company on the SPILL Symposium.
Introduction to SPILL
Festivals with an international scope are now commonplace in most major world cities, but many intercontinental artists who are forging radical new performance based practices, contexts and discourses are rarely seen in London. UK artists and companies are feted overseas, yet often struggle to place their own work on home shores. This not only holds back the informed progression of UK theatre and performance, but is also a disservice to UK audiences, whose access to the full range of contemporary culture is limited. However there is now a groundswell of opinion and a rising tide of new activities in the UK that can no longer be ignored, and indeed are no longer being ignored. And increasingly UK artists such as Pacitti Company, who work at an international level, want to position their practice in the UK within an international context and in relation to their international peers.
SPILL is premised on highlighting three key issues: the nature of radical contemporary theatre and performance practices and particularly within an international context; the challenges of producing, presenting and profiling this kind of work within the UK; and the kinds of strategies and approaches that can be put in place to ensure they are.
SPILL is a three week programme of events composed of:
* presentations of new theatre and performance which reflects the diverse and challenging nature of contemporary theatre practices;
* a series of practice based talks, debates and seminars for emergent artists and inquisitive audiences;
* an exhibition reflecting the complex lineages of contemporary theatre practices;
* a symposium exploring the nature contemporary theatre practices and the cultural issues they raise, and proposing future models of cultural frameworks, critical dialogues and audience relations.
SPILL - Full Programme Details www.spillfestival.com/
SPILL - Symposium
